A Catechism of the Heart: A Jesuit Missioned to the Laity

By Benjamin James Brenkert and Robert Waldron

At the age of twenty-five, Benjamin James Brenkert--a young man from Long Island, a social work student, and an internet vocation to the priesthood--entered one of the historically boldest, influential, apostolic religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church. Aged thirty-four, and a member of the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in good standing, Brenkert was missioned to the laity by his last religious superior. Brenkert could not come out publicly as a gay Jesuit and support his LGBTQ peers who were being fired from various church employment and volunteer activities because of whom they loved.

Brenkert had never concealed his sexuality from his religious superiors, he knew all too well what was written in the Church's Catechism about homosexuals. Still, he felt uniquely called to respond to God's invitation to serve him in total love as a priest, something confirmed in him in prayer during his thirty-day silent retreat and affirmed to him by his religious superiors and peers throughout his life in the Jesuits.

In his Open Letter to Pope Francis in 2014 Brenkert wrote, "Pope Francis . . . I ask you to instruct the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to tell Catholic institutions not to fire any more LGBTQ Catholics. I ask you to speak out against laws that criminalize and oppress LGBTQ people around the globe. These actions would bring true life to your statement, 'Who am I to judge?'" In 2015, the United States Supreme Court struck down bans on same-sex marriage in Obergell v. Hodges and in 2020, the United States Supreme Court expanded the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Despite these landmark achievements in the public sector, LGBTQ Catholics still cannot receive communion and must always seek reconciliation. Their flourishing as part of their religious community is always frustrated.

Brenkert's account of his life before, in, and after the Jesuits is interwoven with trials and tribulations, but remains always full of hope, written candidly and with bracing honesty. Brenkert offers readers the opportunity to join him on a theological and spiritual pilgrimage, one that ends with readers making a discernment. The world today is full of distraction, misinformation, and timidity, Brenkert's pilgrimage is full of conviction, heartful, written with an eagerness to help people of faith and no faith at all find their true selves, all for the greater glory of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jul 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725274464

Benjamin James Brenkert

Benjamin James Brenkert is a New York-based writer. He is completing his doctorate at Teachers College, Columbia University.

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Preface

Dear Readers,

As I settled into my new apartment, decorating with excitement, a new friend asked me, Why do you have such beautiful Christian art? These crucifixes and Madonnas bely the point: The Church rejects gays and you are a gay man.

I answered my friend, the God who loves me is not the sole property of a Church that rejects people like me, LGBTQ people. That god would be too small, a god not worth praying to. I continued, homosexuality is part of God’s creation. Such is the conversation between two gays in May 2020.

While writing this memoir, and with the exception of writing about my loving family, I disguised some real names to protect others’ privacy. I went out of my way to care for, and to conceal the identities of the people I knew and lived with. It is my memoir, my story. Many of the personal letters and essays referenced here were composed while in the Society of Jesus, and remain part of my Jesuit file, tucked away in a Province office. Other writings, like my retreat diaries I have kept and protected from wear and tear.

My hope is that this memoir will present readers with an opportunity to affirm their true selves in the eyes of their God or no God at all, and if they are Roman Catholic, an opportunity to know thyself and to make an election (the Ignatian Spirituality term for making a change/decision following a discernment) like me and to dare to leave the Church of one’s youth for another that is fully affirming—one that does not couch acceptance on reconciliation and celibacy.

I want to emphasize the purpose of my memoir. It is a spiritual contemplation about an old hope: to become a gay ordained Roman Catholic priest, to serve God’s children and to freely respond to God’s calling.

When the Church fired gay and lesbian employees and volunteers, I said, Enough! Firing people for who they love does not make sense. Jesus drew people to himself, to come and see, to put on that sensus Christi. Fr. Pedro Arrupe, S.J., the 28th Superior General of the Society of Jesus prayed for collaboration with Christ, Give me that sensus Christi that I may feel with your feelings, with the sentiments of your heart, which basically are love for your Father and love for all men and women.

My memoir underscores the reasons why I left the Jesuits. I could not, in good conscience, be a priest, Jesuit or otherwise, while remaining in the closet. That is not the making of a happy priesthood.

I end in gratitude. I thank you for accompanying me on this pilgrimage, and for reading my story about being a son of Ignatius of Loyola. For in turn, taking action that all may be loved, for God is love itself.

All for the greater glory of God.

Benjamin James Brenkert

Introduction

The Society of Jesus is an international Roman Catholic religious order of priests and brothers. Some estimate the Society of Jesus to include 10,000 men worldwide. The Jesuits have been the confessors of kings, the spiritual directors to popes; they also run a network of educational institutions that rivals the Ivy League. While fewer and fewer Jesuits may work in the trenches with the poor, the order still has access to a vast network of the rich and powerful, men and women who help shape Church policy, who steward schools and institutions with their time, talent and treasure. Men and women, people of faith and no faith at all, straight and gay people steward the Society of Jesus. These people collaborate with the Jesuits to improve the lives of the world’s materially and spiritually poor. Such is the Jesuit Brand!

For just about 10 years I was a gay, mostly celibate Jesuit Scholastic, a member of the Society of Jesus in good standing. I chose to leave the Society of Jesus over the firing of gay and lesbian employees and volunteers, such an un-Christian policy has severely immoral consequences: it treats peoples as means when they are ends in themselves. It fragments the whole LGBTQ person, telling the LGBTQ person that the part of you that is not heterosexual is not holy, that it is moral to be sexuality-blind (to not see LGBTQ for who God made them to be) and righteous to call LGBTQ to forgiveness and reconciliation when they love a person of the same-sex. Imagine the negative consequences of such a tradition: shame, resentment, and second-class citizenship. Its absurd to say that LGBTQ people want special treatment, that gay rights are special rights, such language is homophobic whether it is blatantly obvious (AKA the Church of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVIS) or inconspicuously ambiguous (AKA the Church of Pope Francis I). Such a policy thwarts human flourishing of some of the most marginalized members of our society.

My years as a Jesuit were profoundly joyful; at the same time, I entered a hidden religious and spiritual world that many know little about. In many ways, as I left the Society of Jesus my heart was broken, and I was also angry. My decision to write a memoir about those years is not done to hurt anyone. It is to the truth about my years as a Jesuit, an order that in the end rejected me because I am a gay man who refuses to hide in a closet. My desiring to be an openly gay Jesuit priest was one that frightened my Jesuit superiors, many of whom are gay themselves.

Today, the Society of Jesus and her stewards are now at a pivotal moment in history: A time when Pope Francis I has taken the Jesuit Brand global, when more and more men, women and young people are coming out as members of the LGBTQ community, when more and more families and friends know LGBTQ people. Around the world, they are reaching out to the Roman Catholic Church to turn to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to teach the world about God’s love and mercy, and about the need for mutual respect, human relationship and the dignity and worth of all human beings; the Church hierarchy has long entrusted such a mission to the Jesuits. No other religious order possesses the talent, time or treasure to fulfill this mission. Furthermore, no religious order is trusted and respected like the Society of Jesus.

It is the Society of Jesus who puts these three questions on the minds and hearts of men and women: What have I done for Christ?, What am I doing for Christ? and What ought I do for Christ? The Jesuits are holy men, historically trailblazers, men called to serve God with total love and total service (Spanish translation: en todo amar y servir).

St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491–1556), the youngest son in a noble Basque family, was trained as a page at the court of Castile. He was wounded at the siege of Pamplona (1521). While convalescing from an injury, he underwent a deep conversion experience. He retired for a year of reflection at Manresa; the notes he jotted down at that time formed the basis of his influential spiritual guidebook, The Spiritual Exercises. After a treacherous pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he undertook prolonged studies (mainly in Paris), gradually attracting like-minded students, like Saints Peter Faber and Francis Xavier. They took vows in 1534, from 1540, when Ignatius was elected Superior General, he lived in Rome organizing, largely through a series of letters, the astonishing spread of the Jesuits. He was canonized, along with Saints Francis Xavier, and Teresa of Avila in 1622.

At a chapel at La Storta, Italy, where Ignatius and his first companions, Fathers Peter Faber and James Lainez, had stopped to pray, God the Father revealed to him, I will be favorable to you in Rome and that he would place him (Ignatius) with His Son. Ignatius did not know what his experience meant, for it could have meant persecution as well as success since Jesus experienced both. Still, Ignatius sought humility not conceit. It is this same risen Jesus who is now inviting the Society of Jesus and her stewards to serve the least and most marginalized amongst us, among these include LGBTQ people. Father David Fleming, one of my favorite Jesuits, now deceased, once told a group of young Jesuits in formation about how we should follow Jesus,

Jesus carrying his cross indicates to us that we will find the cross of disappointment, darkness, diminishment, and sorrow and pain in the ordinary love moments of prayer and community and in the service moments of mission and ministry. Remember that the world we see in Ignatius’ Contemplation on Love is one in which we pray for the grace to be able to love and serve in all things, en todo amar y servir. That is how we follow the risen Jesus carrying his cross.

Growing up as a gay Catholic, I can say that I was with Jesus even in my suffering; that I was with Jesus during my own disappointment, darkness and diminishment in the face of rejection by my family and Church. Yet, I can only use conjecture to suspect that knowing a priest, like David Fleming, would have made a difference in my life. What if priests could publicly identify their sexuality? No, the 1980s and 1990s were a time when the Roman Catholic Church on Long Island had a great impact on me; before long I sought to serve God as a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, all for the Greater Glory of God.

The present moment is a time of gay ascendancy, the Church finds this truth inconvenient, and her ethics remain incoherent; in response to the secular world’s embrace of same-sex marriage the Church tells the world it is failing humanity. How incongruent is the relationship between the Church hierarchy and her laity? No matter what any churchman says, gays are just not accepted, they are men with an orientation toward same-sex desire and same-sex intimacy, they are not natural, having as Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. He also said that same-sex marriage is an anarchic form of pseudo-matrimony. But, being gay is not a choice! Gay youth and gay men still face societal stigma, violence and discrimination remain possibilities for them, whether one lives in the West or the East, in cities like Philadelphia and St. Petersburg or the West Bank. The presence of gay men in the priesthood is paradoxical.

In truth, the Church does not want gay men to apply for the priesthood. But, of course, there are religious orders who ignore such contrivances; for me this was the promise the Jesuits made to me, at least I thought so. But I’d learn over time that the Jesuit commitment to social justice, which differentiates their priests and brothers from the more well known diocesan Roman Catholic priests, is not necessarily valid or reliable. Still, diocesan priests are not necessarily agents for social change, and many do not see them as social activists. As a small boy, the priests in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament enkindled in me a desire to be in relationship with Jesus, one that I still actively pursue as an adult.

Chapter 1

To Question Searchingly

I grew up in a yellow, Tudor-style home in Valley Stream, New York. Just east of Queens. The town is full of middle-class families, who seek the benefits of Long Island with its beaches, malls and suburban benefits, like cleaner air and greater space. Growing up Benjamin James Brenkert, a gay Catholic, started here in 1980. I was born to my parents, Albert and Loretta, and joined my siblings William, Anne, Elizabeth and Catharine. When I was born, my parents were in their forties and fifties, and my oldest sibling sixteen and my youngest eight. Ours was a Roman Catholic family more than it was German, Italian or Polish. And, of course, we were a thoroughly American family. As Brenkerts, our traditions, our way of life, our thought processes were shaped by the Christian religion that for millennia had influenced, if not created, the modern world and Western civilization.

My dad was a New York City Fire Department (FDNY) fire inspector, and my mom worked for Nassau Downs Off-Track Betting (OTB). My dad never went to college, and my mom spent a year or two taking courses, but left to raise a family. In many ways, because of the age gaps, I grew up as an only child, with 3 sister-moms, who each took turns nannying me while I went from diapers, to walking, to talking, to thinking, and to school.

My siblings have a very different understanding of life at home than I do; they heard, saw and felt things differently from me. Still, today, when we talk about our home on Fir Street, it’s as if I am the one experiencing life through the lens of magical realism, while they are less modern, much more conservative, and much more protective of what they saw as the good times.

My earliest memory of my dad sees him coming home from work in his FDNY uniform; he is a strikingly handsome man, whose features include blonde hair and blue eyes. He stands at 5 feet 10 inches tall, but to my young eyes, he looks larger than life. He is smoking his favorite cigarette, a Parliament. He doesn’t speak much, but his eyes say that he wants to but cannot, as if something is holding him back, preventing him from experiencing, perhaps enjoying, the world. If I could have surmised then that it was fear, well, perhaps my dad would have made more sense to me, but what does any four year old know about manic depression or alcoholism, or how these two illnesses, when co-occurring, affect one person or a person’s family system?

My dad also had a tic, not a verbal or physical tic. It was the sound of air passing through his lips, and he could not stop ticking. He’d tick after every word. All of my life I’d hated this strange, if not abnormal, noise. It haunted me, and I felt embarrassed by it, unsure of it or how it came to be, for after all, no other adult or child I’d ever met made such a sound. As I grew up, I’d imitate it, not in mockery but because a son copies his father. Later, I asked my mom, What caused dad’s tick? I also asked, perhaps just as often, When did his sadness begin? And as the years progressed, I looked for answers in my dad’s dresser drawers or his workbench in the basement, the places where he kept mementos, and I looked there when my dad sat watching TV, drinking his beer, or doing some other errand, like delivering meals on wheels to the elderly, his concern for and generosity towards others so typical of him. I wanted to know my dad: as I said, he was to me larger than life, often funny, but also so withdrawn, so introspective, so voiceless that it made me feel uncertain, if not anxious. He was an alcoholic, a Jekyll and Hyde, a victim of rage and a troubled childhood; he was sometimes verbally abusive, transforming him into a frightening figure.

My mom was the oldest child born to an Italian-American dad and a Polish-immigrant mom. She was a brown-eyed beauty and loving and spiritual. I remember her reading the Bible to me at bedtime, stories from the Book of Genesis, and her tucking me into bed. Mom worked often to help support our family, and so my sister-moms were in charge of me, which, in a sense, means that they were also raising me; consequently, they were a great influence on my life. With four moms, I, therefore, cannot describe myself as free. But no sister-mom can replace a child’s natural desire to attach to his or her mom. My mom rarely expressed affection physically. Looking back on this, I can see why, even as an adult, I sought to hug and to kiss her and make up for what I missed as a youth.

My parents grew up on the same street in Maspeth, Queens, and since my mom’s mom was alive, a Polish immigrant, we would drive to visit her just as often as we could. Katharine Gallo was the warmest woman I knew; her eyes sparkled, and she made the most delicious stuffed cabbage a boy could ever have. I relished visiting her and sleeping over; we would often go to TSS, a local department store where she’d buy me Transformers (action figures). I’d play in her apartment, or out in the backyard, near the chicken coups. Left to my own devices, I’d of course start looking for things, seeking answers to my dad’s tic and sadness, or to why this or that door was closed, or why my grandmother had two twin beds. Every drawer I opened might offer a clue, leading me to some secret knowledge (gnosis) about my dad, but the answers I needed never came, and my dad remained a mystery to me until the very day of his passing in 2010.

By the time I was 6, my brother had left our home, to move in with his fiancé Germaine. My brother had a swimmer’s build and was strikingly handsome. I remember finding his Speedos in the room we shared until he moved out. Sixteen years separated us; we were chartered for two different lives. William worked at Toys R’ Us, seemed shy and introverted. He’d bully me in ways only a 22-year old brother could; he was by far stronger than me. I remember his coming home from Oneonta State College with a broken ankle. He had tried to water ski, but the waves got the best of him. Once we even visited Mill Pond together, driving there in his Honda Civic, a stick-shift hatchback. As we were walking around the pond, I fell in, and without hesitation, he quickly pulled me out: perhaps this is a metaphor for my life, falling into water and nearly drowning, and then someone coming to my rescue. 

In fact sometime later, at a BBQ (barbeque) at my Uncle Bill’s house in Seaford (Long Island), a drunk adult picked me up from behind, while in mid air I dropped the hot dog I held in my hand, and he tossed me into my uncle’s pool! I couldn’t swim, too young to learn; it felt like an eternity on the bottom, then somehow splashing up for air. Billy Collins, the poet, had it right, As you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom, leaving behind what you have already forgotten, the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds. I’d never forget the fear, and a certain exhilaration. I’ll always remember what I saw first when resurfacing: the nighttime clouds in the sky.

My sister-moms shared the room next to my brother and me, three of them crammed into the only other room on the second floor. They had a better view of the street, the trees, the grass, and the passersby. I often went there, to play with their make-up or my sister Anne’s clown dolls. Once I watched our Italian neighbor Cesarino Infante chase and hit his son Jimmy with a metal pole. I found out later that Jimmy had been experimenting with cocaine and marijuana. We had one bathroom for seven people, and the doors on the second floor had no locks. Looking back I wish they did, as it might have helped us to understand and to honor boundaries. In any case, my sisters were very, very different, each unique. 

Anne had the greatest influence on my childhood. I would spend the most time with her; we’d shop, and I mean shop! She’d take me to the Green Acres Mall, to stores like A&S, Alexander’s, Sterns, or Kay Bee Toys, and she’d buy and buy and buy clothes. She’d buy me toys. I loved the department stores, enjoyed watching her try on clothes as if I were her personal shopper. She’d take me to class at CUNY-Hunter College; she’d also learn how to hone her skills at giving psychological exams by testing my friends and me. I was her chief admirer, and I grew surprisingly close to her.

My middle sister Elizabeth was the most independent of the three. She suffered from epilepsy, a neurological disorder that struck her with seizures, adding to the instability of my home life. Sometimes when my dad would be in a rage, my sister would seize, and my family would rush into crisis mode. At the time, Elizabeth was rail thin, gorgeous, the prettiest of the three. But she was deeply affected by her disabling illness, her freedom compromised, and so her subsequent flourishing thwarted. When I couldn’t sleep at night, Elizabeth gave me a stuffed animal named Odie, the dog from the cartoon Garfield. In terms of object relation’s theory, this stuffed animal became my security blanket. Later, she’d enroll in the School of Visual Arts, but her potential as a photographer suffered from her loyalty to the